How did public benefit from union issues?

Published 4:41 pm, Friday, August 19, 2011

By Now that state employee union contract issues are almost resolved -- it will be a while before the recent layoffs are rescinded and state agencies return to normal -- will anyone in authority ask whether the contract negotiation process was worthwhile?

That is, as Connecticut's economy collapses, real unemployment nears 15 percent, and the state endures its biggest tax increase in history, exactly how does the public benefit from collective bargaining for government employees?

Of course the benefit to government employees is huge. Collective bargaining magnifies their power, making a small minority equal with a government supposed to represent everyone. What could be more undemocratic?

It's not as if Governor Malloy tried to devastate the state employees. To the contrary, he tried to help them -- the core of his political party -- pretend to be sacrificing with everyone else in hard times. Eventually even the governor himself acknowledged that the concessions he sought from the unions were small -- a two-year salary freeze and some health-maintenance requirements in their gold-plated medical insurance policy in exchange for four years of job security. The General Assembly's Office of Fiscal Analysis concluded that most of the savings claimed for the concessions are just hopeful guesses and cannot be documented.

But even this was too much for many state employees, and the 80 percent majority vote that was first required for contract ratification could not be mustered.

So the governor resorted to layoffs to save the money the concessions were supposed to save, resulting in months of turmoil in public services -- from the closing of respite centers for people with autistic children, to the gutting of the vocational-technical schools, to day-long waits at Motor Vehicles Department offices.

Meanwhile union leaders lied about their incompetence, falsely accusing a public policy research organization of causing the contract's defeat by surreptitiously spreading misinformation. The union leaders also practiced demagoguery, suggesting that government employees are the only "working people" in Connecticut, as if the people whose taxes pay for government don't work for a living too but rather just clip bond interest coupons.

Despite the service reductions, state government and municipal governments still paid raises, and the governor even defended raises at the University of Connecticut, whose basketball and football teams seem to excuse all exploitation and bloat.

The contract just ratified is the same one that was rejected in May. So the intervening turmoil was just a game of chicken between the governor and the minority of state employees who had absolute power under the now-discarded "supermajority" rule.

As contract ratification was announced, the governor tried to minimize what Connecticut had just gone through. "Sure, this agreement took a few extra months to achieve," Malloy said, "but so what? Those extra months are a small price to pay for the billions of dollars that this extra time will save taxpayers, the critical services that this time will preserve, and the peace of mind that comes from understanding that the state now has a sustainable relationship with its employee base."

But the savings remain doubtful, and those "few extra months," coming as they did amid the regular session of the General Assembly, consumed the bulk of state government's public policy attention span for the whole year. Indeed, because of state government's obsession with the union contract, the year was lost to public policy.

Malloy said the new contract was accomplished "without going to war with public employees." But what were the layoffs if not war?

At least Connecticut has seen once again that state government's highest concern is its own compensation.

Can Malloy change this? Does he want to? While he said this week he remains "committed to reducing the size, scope, and cost of government," the new state employee union contract fails to do that, and now for the remainder of his term the governor will be able to reduce state government employment only by attrition.

Touring the state in recent days the governor bluntly acknowledged serious problems: Tenure protects poor teachers, the vo-tech schools turn out too many hairdressers and not enough skilled manufacturing trades people, and high schools send to college too many students who have failed math and English. Better late than never, but thanks to collective bargaining for state employees, solutions to those problems and most others will wait still another year.